Research teams across the UK will investigate the viability of five innovative methods of large-scale greenhouse gas removal to counter the impact of climate change
UK RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
Research teams across the UK will investigate the viability of five innovative methods of large-scale greenhouse gas removal from the atmosphere to help the UK reach its legislated Net Zero climate target by 2050.
The methods all have the potential to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere – but their effectiveness, cost, and limitations need to be better understood and proven at scale.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will invest £30 million in five interdisciplinary projects and a central Hub located at the University of Oxford, to conduct the research over 4.5 years. An additional £1.5 million will be invested in further studies in year 3 of the research.
The results will be used to shape longer-term Government decision-making on the most effective technologies to help the UK tackle climate change and reduce CO2 emissions.
These Greenhouse Gas Removal Demonstrator projects will investigate:
- Management of peatlands to maximise their greenhouse gas removal potential in farmland near Doncaster, and at upland sites in the South Pennines and in Pwllpeiran, west Wales.
- Enhanced rock weathering – crushing silicate rocks and spreading the particles at field trial sites on farmland in mid-Wales, Devon and Hertfordshire.
- Use of biochar, a charcoal-like substance, as a viable method of carbon sequestration. Testing will take place at arable and grassland sites in the Midlands and Wales, a sewage disposal site in Nottinghamshire, former mine sites and railway embankments.
- Large-scale tree planting, or afforestation, to assess the most effective species and locations for carbon sequestration at sites across the UK, including land owned by the Ministry of Defence, the National Trust and Network Rail.
- Rapid scale-up of perennial bioenergy crops such as grasses (Miscanthus) and short rotation coppice willow at locations in Lincolnshire and Lancashire.
Greenhouse gas removals describe a group of methods that directly remove CO2 from the atmosphere and are designed to complement efforts in emission reductions targeting those sectors which are difficult to decarbonise completely such as heavy industry, agriculture and aviation.
The £31.5 million programme is part of the second wave of the Government’s Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF), which invests in high quality multi and interdisciplinary research.
Professor Sir Duncan Wingham, Executive Chair of the Natural Environment Research Council, part of UKRI, said:
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a priority for the UK, but it’s clear that alone that will not be enough to reduce CO2 and meet the UK’s net zero climate target by 2050.
“These projects will investigate how we can actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere using innovative technologies at the scale required to protect our planet. This investment by UKRI is especially significant as the UK prepares to host COP26 in Glasgow later this year.”
The Greenhouse Gas Removal Demonstrators programme will be supported by a central Directorate Hub to provide an overarching coordination role, with specific focus on environmental, economic, social, cultural, ethical, legal and governance issues.
The Hub will have a strong research function and will also actively engage with business communities, supporting innovation in GGR Demonstrator techniques and their progression to readiness for market.
Professor Cameron Hepburn, from the University of Oxford, is leading the Directorate Hub. He said:
“Greenhouse gas removal is essential to achieve net zero carbon emissions and stabilise the climate. Alongside the need for much faster emissions reductions now, we also need to start pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.
“Greenhouse gas removal is not only essential, it also has the potential to become big business. As we rebuild societies and economies following Covid-19, we have an opportunity to orient ourselves towards the green jobs and industries of the future. I’m delighted that UKRI is supporting such a strategic programme.”
This work adds to UKRI’s long tradition of investing in cutting-edge research and innovation to understand, tackle and mitigate the effects of climate change. In the year the UK hosts the UN COP26 summit in November, UKRI will use its role as a steward of the research and innovation system to bring our communities together to create sustainable and resilient solutions and encourage new behaviours and new ways of living that enable the UK to reach net zero by 2050.
###
Have we reached peak insanity, yet? We need to grow more food.
NO
&
YES
Halving your population will decrease your emissions by around 50% … it is preferred because it’s easy.
Who wants to volunteer to be first?
Every green that I know says that the world has too many people. If they want to be taken at their word, they need to show an example.
Leftists don’t wait for you to volunteer.
AMMO goes First.
Sort of depends on which half.
the haves or the have-not’s?
i think culling the have-not’s as the elites prefer would not have nearly as much effect.
They’d need to convincingly stop adding members to the population with a history of overpopulation for that method to be considered. Had they just left everything alone, that aspect would be well along by now.
The Marxists’ first priority is halve emissions by halving GDP/person.
Call it: Shared misery by destruction of middle class affluence by imposing serfdom.
We do appear to be controlled by the Idiocarcy though
The people that buy and pump the gasses into the greenhouses are going to be a little irritated by the government coming along, spending 30 million, and opening the their greenhouse vents.
CO2 is growing that food for us, look at global crop yields, I think we have pretty much reached the pint where we have plenty of food now.
Since CO2 is a minor player, those clowns should go to the roots of the “climate disruption” and undertake water vapor removal from the atmosphere to save the planet.
That task should be easy by condensing water vapor and put it back into the 1,4 billion km3 of sea water on Earth … oh … wait.
Removing water vapour? Do you mind, we are doing more than our fair share in the UK, we had 2 months of rain in the last fortnight, and in Wales they had highest record rainfall since records started in 1860. We are still going strong in that respect it’s going to rain non-stop in the next 12 months or if we are lucky enough for next 12 years, so there.
Makes up for the previous months of unseasonably cool and drier conditions we’ve been having. Are you seriously telling me it won’t average out?
Yes, I mean no, oh never mind…
If we remove all water vapour there will be no need to emigrate to Mars,
btw, here are some high res images from Mars where all water vapour has been removed
https://youtu.be/r8NgRBeylCg
Neither water vapor or CO2 warm the climate. The claim is that these gases in the tropical upper troposphere reflect IR back to the surface, thus warming the climate. This simply does not work. The upper tropical troposphere is about -17 deg C and the average surface at 15 deg C. It is simply impossible for IR from a colder object to heat a warmer object, because all of the energy levels up to and above -17 deg C are full and the IR will be reflected. It’s a nonstarter.
It’s that simple. Do the walls of a room warm you or do you warm the walls? It is clear that a room full of people warm a room rapidly, but a lone person in the same room is not cooked by the walls.
During daylight, these “radiative gases” (the correct term, BTW) are saturated, absorbing sunlight and emitting radiation in all directions, which means that some sunlight is diverted out to space—meaning a tiny bit of cooling or less heating by sunlight hitting the surface.
It is during night-time that these gases actively convert energy in the atmosphere to IR and radiate in all directions. Upward IR is lost to space and downward IR is reflected (the surface is always hotter) and also lost to space. With no incoming energy from the Sun, these gases work to cool the air. This is why the air chills to rapidly after sundown and why small breezes kick up in the moving shadows of clouds on a sunny day with scudding clouds—they are very effective.
It would be more accurate to write: “UK wastes over £30 million in large-scale greenhouse gas removal“. The atmosphere and the plants all need more, not less CO2 and we should be helping them and not hindering them.
I agree, n.t., and I’m wondering if any of the British WATTS readers can file a lawsuit, on behalf of starving our friends, the plants and their children (seeds)? I can hear the moans of starving plants now and I hope it’s not too late.
Hmm. £30 million isn’t a massive amount compared to the billions being spent on useless research worldwide. The mention of COP26 is significant – this is probably a token gesture of virtue signalling to try to establish the UK as a front runner on climate change in the run-up to the next climate junket.
Frankly I can think of dozens, if not hundreds of better ways to spend that £30 million here in the UK – things that we actually need not middle class conscience salving crap.
Yes those squillions of £s need to go towards paying for the first class accommodations, the world class foods, & the world class wines & champagnes & sparklies from around the globe, these climate junkies need to keep their strength up with all of those brain taxing strenuous heart-wrenching decisions they have to make, things like how much to spend on food & booze for the next junket!!!! Also, Greta the poison dwarf will need first class travel arrangements & accommodation for herself & her entourage of hobgoblins supporters!!! All paid for out of their own pockets!!!!! FOFLMAO!!!!!
There is a very good reason why the event is called a “Conference of Parties”
Absolutely…it’s a Party of Conferenciers
Ooooh, hadn’t you heard? The climate goblin stamped her feet, and isn’t going, due to -get this – vaccines not being fairly distributed around the world. Whatever.
For those like me who are unaware of ‘Biochar’ one of the methods being tested, here it is
“What Is Biochar And Why Is It So Good? Biochar is charcoal that is used for gardening, horticultural and agricultural purposes. It is carbon-rich and specifically designed for soil enhancement. You can use it to nourish your soil, enhance growing conditions and get better soil structure.”
So to remove carbon you first have to burn wood in order to get it?
It will presumably make soil more fertile but then it will presumably be tilled for agricultural use thereby releasing it all again.
tonyb
strictly charcoal isn’t burnt wood, but pyrolysed wood
Leo
Thanks for the clarification. However it doesn’t alter the fact that it emits co2 etc when charcoal is being created so can’t see the advantage.
“Up to the temperature of 200°C only water is driven off. Between 200° and 280°C carbon dioxide, acetic acid and water are given off. The real pyrolysis, which takes place between 280° and 500°C, produces large quantities of tar and gases containing carbon dioxide. Besides light tars, some methyl alcohol is also formed. Between 500° and 700°C the gas production is small and contains hydrogen.”
tonyb
I just called it ‘cooked’!
The plant nutritional value of biochar is virtually zero. It can have some beneficial effect on soil physical properties. The energy costs to collect and transport the organic starting material, pyrolize it, and then transport and spread the product must out-way any potential benefit.
Isn’t the best place for ‘biochar’ then on a barbecue? Just asking for a friend, honest.
You can tell your friend, “Only if it’s under a nice steak and the biochar is glowing, with a few skewers of shrimp off to the side.”
Dutch taxpayers have been volunteered to waste 2 billion euros on hiding the life giving gas under the sea..
It would be more accurate to write “UK wastes over 30 million in the STUDY of large-scale greenhouse gas removal”
Does not a single one of these useful idiots ever think about going back to first principles to check whether their work is actually needed? It may be clever to devise ways to remove certain gases, but we need MORE CO2 not less!
You’re forgetting, they are “useful idiots”, ergo they don’t actually think for themselves, others do it for them as it would be too taxing for them otherwise!!!
Someone (people, organizations (people) and businesses (people)) are going to be the recipients of this money. Maybe they aren’t idiots after all!
Exactly, you can bet Professor Sir Duncan Wingham, Executive Chair of the Natural Environment Research Council, part of UKRI and Professor Cameron Hepburn, from the University of Oxford knocked back a couple of bottles of good claret after finishing this thirst-inducing project. I hope they did. They were probably laughing so hard – even I’m having a laugh.
This would make an absolutely brilliant episode of Yes, Prime Minister:
…. but, but, Humphrey, this is like going into a war with a pea shooter.
Don’t worry Sir. None of them can do maths. We strictly forbid George from paying the Extinction Rebellion crowd enough to buy calculators and they wouldn’t know how to use them anyway.
Oh, I see, but what about that little Doom Goblin?
We have that covered too Sir. Our man on the ground in Sweden tells us that Greta has never done a maths course.
Oh, I see. So all I have to do is say “stabilise the climate” in my speech tomorrow?
Yes Sir. Three or four times if possible.
Oh right.
If only they would point out what is happening today, climatewise, to justify this silliness.
Like name one thing that is happening currently that has not happened to a greater degree in the recent past when CO2 played no part.
Human CO2 is definitely an additional climate driver on top of pre-existing and historical climate drivers.
In the UK the change towards more intense rainfall patterns is definitely having a (bad) effect. That’s climate change.
Sorry griff – just needed to check something out. Which UK do you live in, dear? The one that I live in where were experiencing a slight increase in rainfall after a drier spell which will average out over the year and likely show no trend as with every year to date, or the one that you seem to inhabit that seems to be a very nasty place indeed? Griff you really should think about moving – either over to my UK or perhaps somewhere warmer and drier than that dreary calamity-ridden fantasy world you currently inhabit.
The Sahara is Warm and Dry this time of year
Nailed it Richard.
The UK Is A Total Dump these days – a surreal mixture of 1984 meets 1930’s Germany and a generous dash of Lord of the Flies
Most of the ‘lords’ in there are actually (haha) ‘ladies’
As Boris has found out to everyone’s cost.
It is now entirely populated by what I described here a few times as ‘Zombies’
Not your classic ‘graveyard Zombie’ but:
Mental Midgets. Stepford Wives. Cuckoos. Ass kissers
Scary, humourless, officious, unpredictable and brain-dead people with an insane urge for self destruction – achieved via Good Intentions, Appeals to Authority (often=themselves) Monstrous Hypocrisy, Wilful Ignorance, and Political Correctness.
Backed up by a Statute Book that would have sunk the EverGiven and enforced by legalised, groping, self-important, mendacious, joy-riding, sexually deviant thugs calling themselves ‘Police’
But UK folks have convinced themselves ## that they are happy – primarily done via a mix of Good Intentions and Virtue Signalling but by revelling in Doom & Gloom. Fixating on disater seems to make folks happy. How crazy can you get?
Perfectly epitomised by the BBC but all Main Stream Media and everything that now goes past on TV and The Press.
## ‘Convinced themselves‘ = Self Brain-washing = Magical Thinking, occasioned by Chronic Depression
To say that the UK is in the depths of a mental health crisis has got to be the understatement of the century. to date.
But minds and bodies are connected – hence why the per-capita Covid fatality rate was/is so sky-high compared ‘most everywhere else.
Perfect example there being the BBC’s recent fixation with Covid in India – making it out to be a Complete Disaster.
OK, on personal levels yes, but:
In the UK, Covid took down 1 person in 550
In India, Covid took down 1 person in 4,500
Yet the BBC ran page after page of corpse piles,bodies in the river, , thieving undertakers, oxygen shortages……..
Then: How many people in the UK simply ‘let Covid take them’
As old folks do during spells of cold weather – simply let themselves ‘sleep’.
Before the ‘care homes’ take away every last penny of whatever inheritance they had for their kids, while forced to sit all day every day in their own stink & mess being force-fed nutrient-free tasteless dreck washed down with alcohol *** while inescapable Trash TV destroys whatever brain-function was left inside their heads.
We treat animals better. Infinitely better.
*** You guessed correct – The Fat-Free Fibre-Filled Mediterranean Diet
As farmers, ‘give themselves peace’. Escape.
e.g. A recent ‘Farmers Weekly’ email told me that 4 UK farmers had perished, in ‘machinery accidents’, inside the last 3 weeks.
(As my kid brother did 35 years ago – to escape the zombies looming down on him)
Re the 4 farmers: Did Government imposed stress & worry make those farmers pre-occupied, thus careless and accident prone, or, were those d3aths actually ‘staged accidents’
Maybe they ‘Just Wanted Out’ of this madhouse without upsetting the wife & kids, too much. An ‘accident’ makes it easier on them rather than a blatant suicide doncha tink?
Peasants are practical folks. see Part 2 of this rave
But do I really need to, you’ve seen & heard it all before.
What became of my previous raves.
(See what I mean, NO-ONE is immune)
See what they suggest?
They are are doing all the right things but for all the wrong reason.
Soil organics, crushed Basalt, Biochar and all the way through, nutrients nutrients nutrients
Those ‘missing nutrients are what has caused, is causing, what I’m raving about here.
i.e. Mental (and physical) Health Catastrophe
It was foreseen…………. you know who by
And in their Blind Panic, the Zombies are going to trash themselves and almost all life on Earth – with CO2 as the symptom, not the cause
Griff’s ilk wanna be careful what they wish for, The Zombies might turn.
I’m sure there’s precedent… All it needs is for ‘somebody’ to ask “Why” and not accept junk & garbage as an answer as they presently, via political correctness, do.
Like they did with Fauci and his (good grief – triple???!!!) face-masks
griff’s UK can only be found in computer models.
It wasn’t raining this morning. It’s raining now.
CO2 levels are higher compared to this morning.
Ergo, CO2 caused this afternoon’s rain.
To which you can add the UK that is so cold people are still running or putting back on their heating. It is June next week FFS! I was sawing up firewood yesterday and bought 2 sacks of coal as if the sun doesn’t shine long enough the house is cold in the evening. Mind you, last June around 10/11 in the South East we had 2 nights of hard white frost….
Please explain & account for, why a few million years ago when there was 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere than there is today, the Earth was smack bang in the middle of an Ice-Age, you know griff, an Ice-Age, they last for around 90,000 to 130,000 years, whereas those cute little warm periods called Inter-Glacials, only last for around 10,000 -20,000 years (tops)!!! Given those paleo-geological facts, & the current Interglacial the Holocene, only started around 11,500 years ago, we’re living on borrowed time, discuss!!! If you’re struggling for an answer, try looking up your own “end”, it may inspire you!!! Oh & while you’re doing that, have a look at a documentary narrated & fronted by the late Leonard Nimoy in the early 70s, where he expressed scientific concerns that as a result of global cooling for the previous 70-80 years or so, that the Earth could be heading for a new Ice-Age, Discuss!!! Also, please advise as to when the Sun is going to reactivate into life!!!
“… few million years ago when there was 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere than there is today…”
Wait…what?
Hiya Griffy me again. Just need to check one more thing – have you had a bang on the head in the last few days? You really need to get checked out at the Doctors dear – I’m quite worried about you now.
The reason I ask this is quite simple – a couple of days ago you (quite rightly) attributed the cooler, drier conditions we’ve experienced this spring to ‘weather’ but, now we’re getting the rain as the temperatures are slightly increasing, you’re attributing that to ‘climate change’. You can see why I’m concerned about your mental well-being now, can’t you?
The warmer, wetter weather we’re getting now will average out with the earlier cooler, drier conditions and will, once again, show no precipitation trends in the weather.
Now you will go and get yourself checked out at the Dr’s or hospital, won’t you? Sudden mood swings or reversals in cognition can be signs of serious brain injury or mental health problems. I’m very concerned for your health.
Griff
Please supply a link to ‘towards more intense rainfall patterns’ in the UK and tell us why it is different to other times of climate change here? Thanks .
So chopping down the trees and forests of England and Europe wasn’t a driver 🙂
At least they added that to the list so they have a little higher IQ than a Griff.
Where?
Remember headlines telling us “river levels are the highest for a hundred years” really mean 100 years ago there was similar flooding, likely without 100 years of development.
“more intense rainfall patterns is definitely having a (bad) effect”
To your mental health yes.
Even if you add in some pretty soggy countries like Scotland, Wales and N Ireland, your alarmist views are totally unfounded.
Wow look at that “Nasty Trend” in the UK data … 100mm (4″) annual rainfall increase since 1860
No, that’s..
I’m sure there will be repeats of The Floods of Man. You know, the deadly floods of the 14th century.
griff since, as Richard pointed out, you seem to be living in the loonie fantasy part of the UK. what’s the news from those parts on the metric they are going to use to see if their methods of stabilising the climate are working?
That’s a slight improvement. At least griff is no longer claiming that there is no natural climate change.
Now if we can just get him to admit that the only evidence to support his religious conviction that CO2 is a major driver of climate are the disproven climate models.
BTW, there is no evidence that the rainstorms in the UK are getting more severe.
Griff: here are the UK Met Office records for temperature, rainfall, and sunshine going back for over a century:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
Note how variable the rainfall and other patterns are.
I’m 72 years old, and I’ve lived here for all of those years. The British climate is as it always has been – it hasn’t changed – cold years, hot years, dry years, wet years, as unpredictable as ever.
Silly post.
JF
All a waste of time, because CO2 concentrations during the ice ages demonstrated that CO2 was following oceanic temperatures, not causing feedback for temperatures. We know this for several reasons.
Firstly, when CO2 concentrations were high, the world cooled; and when CO2 was low, the wold warmed. If CO2 were the most powerful feedback agent, this is unlikely to have happened.
Secondly, climate scientists say that CO2 sequestration was necessary to drag CO2 concentrations down during each ice age, hence the theory of oceanic iron fertilisation to sequester CO2. But we know this is completely wrong, because ALL of that CO2 was released back into the atmosphere during the following interglacial. Ego, the CO2 had not been deep-sequestered by plant and animal life – instead, lower LGM CO2 concentrations have to be a result of oceanic solubility.
Thirdly, the increasing greenhouse effect is caused by CO2 reradiation, which causes an increase in Downwelling Longwave Radiation (DLR). However, the required increase in DLR has never been detected. Ergo, recent temperature increases have not been caused by CO2.
Other potential causes for the observed warming include:
… Oceanic cycles, like the PDO and AMO.
… Cosmic ray cloud seeding, increasing cloud insulation.
… Polar ice-sheet albedo reduction due China pollution.
… Urban Heat Island effects being ignored.
… Data manipulation of the temperature record.
Ralph
good idea.
I note also this week a proposal to build 10GW of windfarms off Iceland cable connected to UK, in areas selected to have different wind patterns from UK…
and what will the cables cost?
Does that include ongoing maintenance costs?
And what will be the cable resistance losses, over that distance?
R
Apparently the climatistas don’t care about inefficiencies.
Yes, it is a proposal only. Here it is. Sounds unlikely. Wouldnt it be better to build some nuclear plants
tonyb
Huge 10GW of offshore wind capacity near Iceland to help power UK | RenewEconomy
Certainly better than trying to source your power from across 850 miles of open ocean near a volcanically active site that has seasonal ice floes
We have plenty of space here in Australia so we are willing to lease you space for your bird choppers Griff …. please organize money to send. Pretty sure we can accommodate as many as you want or can afford.
And then you can end up with a grid as reliable as South Australia’s…!
R
Hiya Griff. How’s your mental health? Any unexplained headaches, smells or tastes that could indicate a head trauma?
Anyway I was really interested in your idea of laying an undersea cable from an Icelandic wind farm 950 miles under the sea to deliver electricity to the UK. Given that power losses over much, much shorter distances are somewhere in the region of 15% and (as another poster pointed out) costs for laying undersea cables can be up to $1 million per mile, is it worth paying over $950 million (plus the cost of the wind farm) to get just a fraction of the energy produced?
It sounds like a great idea but why not go one better and build a solar collector array in orbit then just lay a cable from there to the UK – less distance surely?
Given the ominous trend in your recent posts, I cannot emphasize enough the need for you to get checked out at the nearest Dr or hospital – seriously worried about your mental health now.
I dunno – I put a really (really, really) obvious joke in there about laying a cable from orbit to the UK and not one laugh or comment on that? My humour is obviously not appreciated.
May have to do with the fact that you need the cable from geo-synchronous orbit which is about 20000 miles. Oh, wait… Griff can’t do math and physics, only parrot.
good idea, making already expensive and unreliable electricity even more expensive and unreliable.
Why does Tommy edit your posts?
I love the idea of “enhanced rock weathering”. Surely, it’s completely mad! Imagine the costs (in term of cash, equipment manufacture and upkeep and CO2 emissions from the fuels used throughout the processes) involved in quarrying, transporting, crushing and distributing billions of tons of igneous rock around even a country the size of England. And what would it achieve? Would it really sequester much CO2 at all (even if that goal mattered)? This insane scheme is almost as daft as the idea that you destroy virgin US forests, transport, dry and pellet the wood, then ship it thousands of miles over to the UK to burn to make electricity. Oh wait…
NOBODY is destroying virgin US forests for pellet wood. Do you homework before ranting that idiocy.
DRAX requires 7.5 million tonnes of Biomass transported annually much of which comes from the U.S. forests. Check out DRAX POWER GENERATION in WIKI the Great and powerful. Burning wood produces 1900g of CO2 from 1000g of wood so biomass burning at DRAX will create 14.25 million tonnes of CO2 annually
Absolutely.
Drax has become ‘Drax The Destroyer’ (a cartoon character).
R
People like wood products. Wood products come from forests. Managed forests need to be weeded. The forest weeds may go to pulp, firewood or a biomass plant. Or, often the case, they burn the wood out in the open- which is vastly worse than burning it in a modern biomass burner with air pollution controls on the chimney.
Like I said- it doesn’t come from clear cutting virgin forests. It comes from WELL MANAGED forests. And, who cares about the CO2 emissions? I don’t- but anyone who really thinks about this understands that what goes up the chimney isn’t relevant in the case of biomass- you need to track carbon from the forest. The forest is what counts. If the forest isn’t decreasing in carbon- then whereever the wood goes is irrelvent. So, you burn wood- and the forest grows more wood. When you burn fossil fuels- you don’t get it back from the ground. I’ve explained this countless times- but, again, most people here aren’t horrified about CO2 emissions. And, if people like wood products- they do need to understand that to grow wood you need to manage the forests- and get rid of the forest “weeds”. When you have a garden, you weed it right? The forests have more carbon in them than a century ago- and increasing all the time. Ergo, the forests are not a carbon source- that’s what counts. Growing healthy forests adds wealth to forest owners so they keep it as forests, not sell it off to developers like wind and solar “farms” which destroys the forests. And, ironically, much of the wood cut from cleared forests- for solar farms- goes to- guess where- yes, biomass burners.
7.5 million tonnes sounds like a lot.
In fact it is a lot.
In the southern US, it is common to get about 100 tones of wood per harvested acre.
So that 7.5 million tons would be equal to about 75000 acres, which is equal to about 117 square miles.
South Carolina alone has about 13 million acres of timberland.
The size of trees that are used for various purposes is well defined here.
5-7 inches in diameter at breast height is called pulpwood.
8-11 inches is called chip-n-saw.
Theses are the two sizes that would be sold in commodity markets for wood pellets.
Trees that size can be grown in a short amount of time, and any place where trees are cut will have a mix of such sizes if it was not very expertly managed.
People that harvest timber in the US are not idiots.
All of the various materials are commoditized and sold in open markets.
Chip & Pulpwood Price Trends in the US South & PNW (forest2market.com)
Agriculture here is a business run by businesspeople.
It is not a free for all run by jackasses.
What people do with the stuff they buy, well, what is the difference?
We have all the toilet paper and paper towels and newspaper and boxes we need, so what is going over to Drax is obviously extra.
It is thought to be driving up prices however.
So is using corn for ethanol.
The real scandal in biofuels is elsewhere though.
They cut down rainforest to grow palm oil trees, and they only get a few years worth of crops from those places, from what I have understood to be the case.
And in many cases, maybe most cases, those are old growth forests and important habitat.
One hurricane knocked over about 20% of all the trees in South Carolina.
And we get some most every year.
So really, it is not worth worrying about.
It may be stupid, considering that GB has fossil fuels under the ground, but it is not criminal, or a crime against nature, here in the US.
It is just agriculture.
Here is an interesting graph I found.
I was wondering how much wood pellets cost, vs coal for example, and it appears that as of 2018 anyway, the cost averaged out to roughly the same ballpark…80 some dollars a ton.
More or less, depending.
Then I was wondering how much energy is in a ton of each.
Obviously coal has far more, somewhat less than twice as much.
1.7 x as much for anthracite coal, for example.
I found lots of easily located and interesting tables, such as one for the weight of timber:
Landowner’s Guide to Determing Weight of Standing Hardwood Trees FSA5021 (uaex.edu)
A fuel comparison chart:
Fuel Comparison Chart (baggedcoal.com)
Not a very good one, as it does not even have bituminous coal listed.
And of course lots of stuff about the relative merits of various fuels, specifically in one case wood vs coal:
Microsoft Word – PFPI biomass carbon accounting overview
And then I came across what looks to be a blog written by some forestry guy:
How Much Energy is Produced Using Wood? A Forester’s Perspective (forest2market.com)
Anywho, it turns out wood pellets for export is a tiny fraction of the wood the US produces for energy. One or a few percent by the look of it.
Wood pellets truly is a small fraction of the total energy supply mix, miniscule in fact compared to all other sources combined. DRAX produces 2.4 GW of energy from biomass. At 75,000 acres per year, 13 million acres of forest would last 175-180 years for One DRAX facility.
(Diablo Canyon NPP produces 2.2 GW annually on 12 acres and leaves the carbon sink intact.)
If it takes 50 years to replenish the forest to the same point of harvest then the 13 million acres mentioned would only provide for a sustainable fueling load of 3.5 DRAX sized generators producing 8.8 – 9 GW annually. To replace Coal with Biomass would require twice the number of generators ALL still spewing CO2 and ALL depleting the Carbon Sink
The U.S. has 741 million forested acres which would supply about 200 DRAX biofuel generators and produce 480 GW of electricity annually.
That’s 4,200 TWh annually. The U.S. uses 3,800 TWh annually so all the forests of the U.S. could supply the U.S. electricity at current usage but leave little for any other purpose (construction, paper, heating, landscaping) or sharing with the rest of the world (DRAX) and produce 2.8 billion tonnes of CO2 in the process
It does not take 50 years or anything close to 50 years to replenish trees in the Southeast US, or in the western US.
For pulpwood and chipwood, 4 to 5 crops can be harvested in 50 years.
And what is being used for pellets is almost all debris, trash, residue, and scrap from ongoing logging for lumber and other needed wood based products. I posted a ton of links and some pictures of how fast trees grow.
50 years is long enough to grow very large logs of a slow growing hardwood tree in an unmanaged northern forest.
The big picture is, using US pellet wood to ship overseas to make power is a huge waste of money for those buying the power, and those subsidizing the whole shebang, and a huge net gain for forestry operations, loggers, and sawmills in the US, that can now sell much what used to cost money to haul away to landfills, or burn in piles, or chip and leave in place on the ground.
And furthermore, it is doubtful there is any net gain towards the stated goal of these so-called green power generation schemes.
They are wasting money for nothing.
My back of the envelope guesstimate is that one large county, about 30 miles by 40 miles, or 1200 square miles, in South Carolina could sustainably produce all the pellets Drax uses, forever.
This is what an amateur can grow in 12 years with zero input after planting:
Wow just look at that nice clean orderly forest with trees planted in nice neat rows
Joseph is exactly right.
There are virtually zero virgin forests in the US,
The pine forests in the Eastern US that are harvested for lumber, pulp, or whatever, take about 20-30 years to grow.
We can keep doing it forever, although I personally cannot see how it makes a lick of sense to do it even once for pellets to send overseas to make electricity.
Virgin forest in the US, in 1620:
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/virginforestppt-100126130925-phpapp01/95/virgin-forests-cover-in-the-us-1-728.jpg?cb=1264541300
There was still plenty of virgin forest in the US prior to the Civil War:
…but after that war, just about the entire US was clear cut.
Pennsylvania, for example, was clear cut from East to West in the 1870s by the same guys who cleared the forest for the Union armies, who, by the end of the war, could clear trees and build corduroy roads and bridges out of the lumber, as fast as the army could march.
By 1920, tiny dots of virgin forest remained on some private lands:
Today, you have to look real hard to find any virgin forest in the US.
Most places have had many crops of timber harvested in the 20th century alone.
Trees are a crop here, and the stands of timber are owned and managed by people who know exactly what they are doing.
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/virginforestppt-100126130925-phpapp01/95/virgin-forests-cover-in-the-us-4-728.jpg?cb=1264519700
12 year old pine plantation in the southern US:
And about 18 years old after some prescribed burns and a thinning:
These days, a lot of farmers do not harvest the trees at all. Instead, they manage the land for hunting, or harvest the pine needles for mulch.
A grower might get $4000/acre for the lumber, but he/she can get $1200/acre for the pine needles…every year!
Why pine needles are a $200 million industry in the Southeast – The Washington Post
“The pine forests in the Eastern US that are harvested for lumber, pulp, or whatever, take about 20-30 years to grow.”
Maybe some in the southeast but not in the north and northeast where pine will usually not be cut before at least 60 years.
“We can keep doing it forever, although I personally cannot see how it makes a lick of sense to do it even once for pellets to send overseas to make electricity.”
Makes as much sense as any other energy production system. They all have trade offs.
I didn’t know about the needle market! But, you can manage for timber and for hunting. With smart forestry you can enhance the diversity of the forest- with young, middle and old age types each with their own biodiversity.
The question was not what the most common age of harvested trees is, but how soon a harvestable tree can be profitably grown.
Obviously waiting longer means larger trees with a higher value.
But it also takes longer.
For one thing, there are different ways trees can be harvested.
It can be done for an order by a sawmill, that might require a certain diameter for the type of lumber they need to make.
Or it might be done by someone who wants to get what they can for a stand of trees because they want the money now.
Trees can be obtained by clearcutting, or by thinning.
Thinning can be done to remove the worst trees, or the best.
There are always supply and demand factors, as well as many other factors that determine how much money one can get for a certain batch of logs.
There are huge tracts owned by large corporations, and there are smaller tracts owned by people who own smaller amounts of land, some of whom might have planted trees for a tax break, or may have done it in order to have a source of income on a certain timetable.
Some land is cleared for building, and some is cleared and then replanted immediately.
But all of these factors combine into a large interconnected industry.
Clearly, it is a different question to ask what is the average or usual age of harvested trees of a given type in a given area, and what is the amount of time required for harvestable trees to grow after being planted.
One thing is for sure: The value of the lumber from large old trees is very high, and no one is using them for firewood pellets.
Except the parts that are not useful for lumber.
Every tree has a large amount of it’s mass that is useless for lumber.
Every saw cut makes a pile of sawdust.
More and more, none of what used to be wasted, is being wasted.
I have looked at the articles on this issue of entire trees being used for pellets.
From what I have seen, a few photos taken by air in some spots, saw large piles of trees outside of pellet plants.
But in none of them, was the picture taken from close up.
In most of them, it was obvious the “whole trees” were a few inches in diameter at one end.
In other cases, the trees may have been rotten, or been the tops of trees where there are many knots.
They could be from trees that were burned then harvested.
Or bent logs.
Or all of the above.
Anything under 11 inches in diameter and 16 feet long is not typically sawn…they are used for pulp, pellets, fence posts, mulch, or whatever.
It is estimated that the US has about 70% of the number of trees that were here when Columbus discovered the New World.
With over three hundred million people and after over 500 years, that seems pretty good.
Currently it is generally agreed that the amount of trees and timber in the US is increasing every year, so whatever is being cut, more than that is growing.
“I have looked at the articles on this issue of entire trees being used for pellets.”
It does happen where it makes sense. For example, here in New England- most of the forest has been high graded in the past- where they took the best and left the rest. The rest were trees not worth cutting. That included trees with severe defects and disease or species with little or no market value. So, many of the forests in this region are in very poor condition. So, to fix that problem foresters might clearcut the stand and let it start over again- or “low grade” it – that is leave the best and take the rest. One of the most abundant low or no value trees are white pine that have been severely damaged by the white pine weevil- which eats the top of the tree causing it to develop many heads. I’ve seen many 20-30″ diameter pines without a single log in them if “weeviled” low- and the multiple heads are usually crooked and often weeviled again. Another common problem is red maple- they are often rotten in the middle and grow in clumps. Another species which have little or no market value is poplar. If I do a thinning in a mediocre mixed species forest here- as much as 2/3 of all the wood to be removed cannot be sent to a sawmill. There used to be a thriving pulp market in New England but that’s been dying for a generation as most of the paper mills have left the region so the pulp mills close down. Without a chip market we simply can’t do good forestry. What I did when I live in Berkshire County, in western most MA, without a chip market- I made the loggers cut down trees I wanted to not be growing- or they’d have to double girdle them to kill them. Those trees would soon rot and yes, release CO2 and methane. Now that I live in north central MA and closer to the chip market- I can do far better forestry and that “junk wood” instead of rotting in the forest can be used for energy- either for power or for pellets for homes. So, no virgin forests destroyed to produce pellets for Drax and I don’t understand why some people here think chipping wood for energy is a terrible thing like giant solar and wind farms.
Mr Zorzin,
My point was actually about the rock crushing lunacy. As you will have guessed, however, I used Drax as an example of another quite extraordinary and futile attempt to save the planet. You can find plenty of discussion of Drax and its curious accounting for “carbon emissions” on sites like notalotofpeopleknowthat. For the record, it is now calculated that Drax is burning more wood per annum (and, as yet, with little or no CCS) than the entire UK forestry industry produces and, yes, a great deal of that wood comes from cutting down trees then processing the wood within the USA. At the start, Drax claimed that such wood was “waste” wood from other industries. A number of investigations have proved that is not the case, however – mature, living trees are being cut down in huge numbers and, no, those trees were not grown to be felled in cultivated forests.
I’m sorry if you thought my “rant” was excessive but I rest my case and it is not a case borne out of “idiocy”.
If you tell me where the virgin forest was (before it was destroyed for wood pellets) I will pay for your plane ticket, meet you there, and we can mourn together for as long as you want.
It’s on me … all expenses paid.
There certainly is little left- but more than some people understand- small patches in many places-here in New England and elsewhere, there are groups of old growth lovers who search them out, document them and fight to protect them.
Ian, there is almost no place in the US…exactly no place I know of…where trees are cut for commercial sale that were not planted for the purpose of cutting them for commercial sale.
The price of lumber has exploded in the US, and I am curious what effect that will have on Drax.
But where ever they get the wood for the pellets, they are doing so in an open market.
Save your angst for a proper cause.
Cutting trees in the US aint one.
We are good at it, have plenty of land, the trees grow fast, and unharvested trees can be knocked down by hurricanes or burned in fires on a colossal scale, wasting them completely:
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-23-hurricane-michael-timber-wildfires-florida
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html
In Hugo, in 1989, in South Carolina alone:
“Across 23 counties, 4.4 million acres (1.8 million hectares) experienced the loss of 6.6 million board feet (15,600 m3) of timber, equivalent to three to four times the annual timber harvest; this was a greater loss of timber than observed in Hurricane Camille, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, and the Yellowstone fires of 1988, combined.”
“A conservative estimate valued the lost timber statewide at $1.04 billion.”
I drove through there the day after they reopened I-95, and for hundreds of miles, it was simply astounding to see the damage to the trees.
Millions and millions of trees were smashed like a giant had crushed toothpicks with a fist.
North Carolina was hit even harder than South Carolina as far as timber destruction.
So many trees were knocked down, that a large scale effort was made to go in and harvest as much of what could be gotten to as possible. This was, AFAIK, a first of it’s kind effort in the US after a hurricane.
rp_se284.pdf (usda.gov)
Just a footnote, but in the northern USA, trees are seldom planted- not needed as the trees plant themselves. We plan ahead when thinning a forest as to what sort of regeneration will occur. it does sooner or later if not the next year. Planting is too expensive in the north but economically feasible in the south where trees grow much faster and there is a well developed industry.
“The price of lumber has exploded in the US, and I am curious what effect that will have on Drax.”
It’ll have zero effect because what goes into the chipper is the lowest value wood-which has no other market. It won’t raise the price to Drax because that company now owns most of its sources in North America.
After a major disaster like a hurricane- the chip market may be the best for much of the wood- you can’t saw up a smashed tree but you can easily chip it- all done by big machines so much safer than a worker with a chainsaw.
Drax owns three pellet plants in the US, which is about 20% of what they use.
They do not own the source of the raw materials used.
The total amount of pellets made in the US for export appears to be roughly what DRAX uses every year, so obviously, unless they own every pellet maker, which they do not, they do not own the source of all the pellets they get from here.
And since the US supplies other countries, obviously Drax has other source countries…like Canada for one.
You do not know it will have zero effect.
Everything has an effect on everything else.
The price of pellets has fluctuated hugely over just a few years in the recent past.
One reason lumber prices went up is because of the pandemic, with plants idled, etc.
So the sources of raw materials for pellets likely shrank.
That would tend to push prices up.
Now with prices so high, that will spur production increases, which may push prices down as there will be more scrap and waste and chips if more trees are being harvested.
All sorts of factors combine to make a commodity market, and pulp and chip wood is a commodity.
Most especially on the scale of the entire pellet output of the USA.
They are wasting a huge amount of money on this boondoggle.
It is clear from the price of the power they make, compared to other sources in the UK alone. They charge a large premium over other power sources and suppliers.
Maybe it’s a boondoggle for Drax but it’s nice for the American chip producers. Instead of burning chips- they could always install thousands of acres of solar “farms”- maybe near your home. yes, I know- there is coal in Britain. I like coal. I once had a home with a small stove that burned coal chips.
And yes, you are right about trees being planted.
I was speaking specifically about the the southeast US, but did not say that.
The vast majority of the US lumber industry is for soft wood dimensional lumber.
The source of the vast majority of the raw material used in these streams of lumber are large commercial operations. The kind that plant trees, harvest them, then replant.
In places like PA, there is not much of a logging industry, for historical reasons.
But there are some large Christmas tree and ornamental nurseries.
Both of those are big business that plant and harvest a regular stream of trees.
Those industries exist in just about every state where trees can be grown.
AFAICS, the only thing Mr. Zorzin disagreed with you on, is the part where you said the wood pellets come from virgin forests.
They do not.
There are no such forests in the US to speak of.
They are not likely to come from anything like old growth forests either.
Large trees are very valuable for lumber.
Smaller trees, not so much.
Every year, large areas are cleared for various reasons, the the trees cut and hauled away…and in some cases burned on the spot.
Every logging operation and sawmill creates huge amounts of wood waste. Every clear cut involves the removal of a large number of diseased and damaged or for some other reason useless for lumber trees.
My guess is that this is how they manage to get what they need, unless they are paying lumber prices for firewood.
One thing is for sure…every tree is being sold by someone who owns land with trees on it.
Good sawlogs can sell for several hundred dollars per thousand board foot- on the stump- for the owner. The “on the stump” value for chipwood is close to zero because the value paid at the final destination isn’t enough to compensate the owner after all the people that must handle it get paid. But, removing that wood is necessary for good “silviculture”. So it’s part of improving the forest for the future- and thus adds value to the future forest.
I think whatever was true regarding the economics of the ingredients used in pellets may have been in the past, or in one particular place, is not the case any more, necessarily.
Pellets have become a huge business.
Sawmills used to burn sawdust and scrap, and every logging operation had burn piles.
But with a ready market for these materials, and oodles of pellet plants wherever wood is being harvested, I suspect this is no longer the case.
In fact I have just in the past few hours been reading up on it, and it is definitely the case.
Market Pulp Price Surge: What’s Driving Prices Higher? (forest2market.com)
Precise and up to date info can be hard to come by though, and one reason is that such information is itself a product that is sold.
If it was not worth gathering it up and transporting it, no one would have any pellets to sell.
It may be that instead of having to pay someone to clean up the residue of logging and land clearing operations, it may be that some company will do that for free, with their compensation the material they gather and haul away.
Or it may be that they still have to pay, just not much.
or it might be, they can get someone to pay them, and so instead of a cost, it is now a source of revenue.
It seems very unlikely pellet plants get their raw material for free.
Here, check it out:
“Raw Materials
Fiber By-Products Corp. is always looking for additional supplies or clean wood sawdust, shavings, chips and grindings.
Raw Materials – FiberBy-Products.com
If all they did was gather trees knocked over by hurricanes and tornadoes, they would never run out or come close to making a dent in the supply.
“extraordinary and futile attempt to save the planet”
sheesh—- it’s NOT being done to save the planet- it’s a business- it’s better than coal though some don’t get that…. it’s renewable AND dependable and base load power so it’s NOT to be associated with wind and solar- Michael Moore got that wrong
“mature, living trees are being cut down in huge numbers”
OF COURSE— and so what???? It’s all part of long term forest mgt. The fact that you can’t grasp this is unfortunate. Those are the weed trees- OBVIOUSLY high quality trees go to sawmills or plywood factories. Live trees got cut so you can have a wood home, too. And furniture. Get over it.
Anyone who has ever been in a place where trees are growing ought to know that all the trees are not lumber quality.
If they are clearcutting, there will be some amount of smaller trees, bent ones, damaged ones, ones with knots (branches at a low height), etc.
The older and more mature the stand of trees, the more variability there will be, generally speaking.
Minimum size for a sawn log is about a foot in diameter tapering to about 8 inches, and 16 feet long.
Smaller than that, and it is pulp or chip wood.
A search easily finds the articles where these concerns were raised.
I read a bunch of them…it was just bullshit.
There are people that freak out about a pile of logs outside a commercial operation.
Large scale operations like logging generate a huge amount of waste.
From what I have gathered, stuff that used to be burned is now used, and at some point it sits in big piles.
Then some ninny takes a picture from the air, and the MSM generates a fact free headline article about “whole trees being used for pellets”.
“How Precious US Forests Keep Our Lights On”
Oh, man, GMAFB!
Woodland is shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power station | Daily Mail Online
Don’t they grind up quartz to extract gold?
If so, perhaps the gold mines could apply for grants as a CO2 mitigation site?
All open rock quarries need to be given generous tax credits….
Whose CO2 are we sequestering? Chinese? If from the atmosphere, then yes. I suppose we can lie to the world that we have a zero balance because we can lay off this ‘capture’ against Heathrow. Love the bit about trees! What idiots! Don’t they know anything about vegetation cycles? Zero carbon indeed!!!
Takes 50-100 years to produce a mature tree but only hours to burn it to cinders for power generation
Depends on the type of tree.
Pines can be grown to harvestable size in a decade or so.
Also depends on the amount of pellets per tree required to make the scheme viable. Longer growing time equates to significantly more wood per tree
50-100 years? Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about.
In boreal forests, it takes an amount of time comparable to that.
But in the US, even hardwood species can be harvested for lumber in 20-30 years.
This is true for such species as Black Walnut and Red Maple.
10 Most Profitable Trees To Grow – Profitable Plants Digest
There are some species that yield salable lumber in only 7 years.
https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=19807#:~:text=Fast-Growing%20Tree%20Produces%20Lumber%20In%20Seven%20Years%2031-1-8,up%20to%20seven%20times%20after%20being%20cut%20down.
Douglas Fir takes about 30 years in he western US.
It is common to drive past places that have been logged and see signs describing how many times the area has been planted and harvested, which makes it very clear that a few decades is plenty of time.
DOUGLAS FIR | earn a 300 percent return in 30 years (treeplantation.com)
Now, someone can wait for 80 years to get more money for their trees, and some growers in places like Wisconsin are known to be holding trees so they can get more for them when they are bigger, but it is hardly the case that it takes that long to grow a crop of trees.
It does take longer in the more northern and colder parts of the US than in the warmer and more southern regions, and that may be why more land is devoted to food crops up there than to trees, as compared to the southern and western states.
LOBLOLLY PINE | fast growing pole wood (treeplantation.com)
Morons.
Stabilise the climate? At what CO² levels does the climate become stable?
What do you even mean by stable?
Not too hot, not too cold, just like professeur Goldilocks wants it?
How about a 30% reduction in CO² levels, take us back to that 1800’s atmosphere that was so renowned for it’s stability.
Mad professeurs still exist apparently…
“At what CO² levels does the climate become stable?”
They never seem to have an answer to that.
The usual answer I receive to that question is 280ppm/v, pre-industrial levels (Which we know is an estimate). But then some people claim the “safe” level is 350ppm/v. But all alarmists I talk to is too much CO2 in the air, I ask what is the right amount?
You’ve gotten more than I have then. But then – how do we ensure we hit the right target and don’t overshoot?
Seems to me that those two Professors and their followers know what they are doing only when they are sitting on a toilet.
more like a chamber pot
As somebody has already pointed out elsewhere – that’s definitely a forcing!
Charles,
Its not as though we haven’t been warned.
“Even if we get to net zero, we need to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
This is a greater challenge than a lot of people have grabbed on to yet.”
– John Kerry,Huffington Post, April 22,2021.
It is certainly a greater challenge than John Kerry and President Biden understand.
“UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will invest £30 million”
“The £31.5 million programme”
Seems like someone has sequestered 1.5 million pounds up front. 😉
Ah, no. If you’d read a bit more, you might have seen the little bit about £30 million going into the project initially, then £1.5 million going in the final year.
Presumably it’ll be for a huge blowout of a party for all concerned to congratulate themselves on such a self-serving waste of time, effort and (other peoples) money.
This is criminal
Not really. It’s government. I know it’s awfully easy to confuse the two, but you can tell the difference as criminals are easier to put behind bars.
£30 million
Sounds a lot, but in the scheme of the scam it’s pocket change.
What I would like to know is this: What is – according to the religion of climate hysteria – the optimum level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Do they even have one? And if so, how did they arrive at that figure?
What will they do if a volcano or two messes it all up?
I wholeheartedly applaud this wonderful investment of my hard earned to ensure the future of the world. On the proviso, of course, that only UK generated CO2 is sequestered by these projects. Other countries should pay for their own.
Peter, you are absolutely right. We already know the percentage of co2 emissions that each country is emitting. We should pay 1% of the cost of these projects which is in line with our co2 production. China will get a whopping bill from us.
On a smaller scale, but with similar thinking, Australia’s Feds have recently announced money for jam. To quote,
“Expressions of interest are now open for this round of the Powering Communities Grant Programme.
Grants opportunities are available to not-for-profit organisations for projects which will help reduce carbon emissions, specifically:
The grant amount will be up to 100% of eligible project expenditure. Grants will be between $5,000 and $12,000. You must fund any expenditure over the grant amount they are awarded. You should complete your project by 30 June 2022.”
Geoff S
Thirty million pounds to make and spread charcoal from waste, grow peat, quarry, mill, and spread limestone, plant trees, and restore natural grassland. A pittance, but useless. I’d guess that the fossil fuel expenditures will be greatest costs of the £30 mil, and no one will try to measure the effectiveness of any of the projects. More virture signaling to no effect.
But peat, charcoal, trees, and grasses can be burned directly as fuel or processed into various biofuels. Some can be used to activate the lime, so we’ll have plenty of concrete to build with. Ash and lime in runoff will counteract a tiny bit of ocean acidification. So not a complete loss.
Yes!Reminds me of when a soccer team I liked paid a striker £25000 per week to score goals and he didn’t score any for 15 weeks! I offered to not score any for £10000 per week .I now offer to not affect “Climate change” for £10 million !
wolf, Smart man, brilliant suggestion! I want to be a climate storage contractor! I can get paid for adding to my compost pile, then sneer at anyone who criicises subsidies. Since I identify as a recalcitrant recluse curmudgeon, I can get government preference for small, minority-owned, disadvantaged business. Mate, you are a genius.
Loadsa funds to solve nonexistent problems. Channel it all into greenhouses and grow better tomatoes
Worth repeating from time to time:
Charles MacKay in 1841 said “Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.” and “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Both true of climate change and so called renewable energy.
Virtue flushing a new thing now.
Enhanced rock weathering. Could be the name of a heavy metal band.
Seeding clouds makes it rain and removes the most important greenhouse gas.
What’s cutting edge about crushing rock and spreading it on a field?
They have no idea; to them everything is new and undiscovered.
The “cutting edge” is the new specially designed knife they are going to cut/crush the rocks with using only human powered energy.
Bravo Boris! As fast as CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere, nature will put it right back in.
https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548?t=2906
Brits’ taxes hard at work: The next Solyndra.
Climate change is the great demonstrator project era to nowhere.
“Greenhouse gas removal is essential”
– To what end? What is the goal here? How much CO2 do they want to remove?
Never an answer, is there?
Burning the money for its heat content would have been more productive.
They used to burn old bank notes at Battersea power station…
Not the weirdest thing to burn in a power station.
“Professor Cameron Hepburn, from the University of Oxford, is leading the Directorate Hub. He said:
“Greenhouse gas removal is essential to achieve net zero carbon emissions and stabilise the climate.”
************
Ah yes, one of climate alarmist narrative’s main articles of faith…the fact that the Earth’s climate is supposed to be stable and unchanging (or at least largely so). Must keep pushing that faith article so they can keep milking governments for things like this carbon sequestration project. One’s bank account can never be too healthy.
It is sadly obvious that the good professor apparently never heard of the Younger Dryas…
https://www.britannica.com/science/Younger-Dryas-climate-interval
“. The onset of the Younger Dryas took less than 100 years, and the period persisted for roughly 1,300 years. After the period ended, an interval of rapid global warming increased average temperatures to levels comparable to those of the present day.”
**********
The Climate Alarmist Board of Censors must continually keep things like the YD largely unknown in the general public. The public’s awareness of climate events like that would be far too damaging to “The Cause,” now wouldn’t it?
Addendum to my comment above (from the Britannica article)…
“A second abrupt climatic warming event, approximately 11,600 years ago, marked the end of the Younger Dryas and the beginning of the Holocene Epoch (11,700 years ago to the present) and Earth’s modern climate. In this second warming interval, average global temperatures increased by up to 10 °C (18 °F) in just a few decades.”
Many might not know that in addition to the money be wasted in this scheme planting trees, there are plenty of grants around to plant trees to save the world. In fact the money that used to go to the EU Common Agricultural Policy is now being directed to farmers to grow nature reserves instead of food which is less profitable. Still, if the cooling cycle has really started and food yields drop thereby increasing prices the farmers might go back to producing food again.
The photo on the home page is of euros. Clever Brits, suing other people’s money to do the job.
Better to think about compost earthworms, which are excellent at converting carbon in the soil.
There’s no place to hide from the climate changers-
Drax carbon-capture plan could cost British households £500 – study (msn.com)
I have a better idea. Just export everybody from the UK to somewhere else (ideally, poor countries where the GHG footprint is much smaller (it’s only 66 million people anyway). The UK can then return to its natural people-free state. I’m not sure the UK GHG emissions will be effectively zero, but realistically, it’s the best we can do.
The UK Govn’t wasted GBP37 BILLION on PPE equipment in the COVID-19 sc@mdemic. 30 million is chump change.
Global warming is a global issue that requires a globally coordinated plan to cut global emissions. There is no opportunity here for climate heroism of nation states.
Or so I thought.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/02/11/a-green-revolution/
If the crisis was real, we’d stop recycling all paper products and simply entomb them in modern landfills where the minimal waste gases are captured. And of course build more nuclear.
There’s a new X PRIZE, sponsored by Elon Musk, for any way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere economically, at large scale. The total prize is $100 million, though like most of the later X PRIZE purses, it’s not a winner take all. The first prize is $50 million, with graduated second and third place prizes.
I worked for the X PRIZE Foundation in 2005-2006, and regard Peter Diamandis as a great visionary, and a personal friend for whom I have the highest regard. I also know Elon Musk professionally, and like him quite a bit personally (history will regard him as a giant, and I feel blessed to have known him). AND I have an idea for a renewable energy infrastructure that could easily achieve Elon’s desire for removing >6 gigtonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere annually (it would actually remove >160 gigatonnes per year) on an economical basis.
The only problem is, I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove all of that CO2 from the atmosphere. I’m 67 years old, and $50 million would be a nice retirement nest egg. But I have a wife, two sons, and a granddaughter on the way. I want them to at least have enough food to sustain them, and reducing the CO2 content of the atmosphere does not work in that direction. And if CO2 were really the heavy-duty control knob on global temperature the elites think it is, I wouldn’t want to be the one to plunge my descendants into an ice age.
BTW, my two years with X PRIZE were the most fun years of my professional life. Just sayin’…
Well, it’s now being admitted – it’s impossible to achieve a zero carbon energy infrastructure alone. I wonder how much cost for CCS they factored into the long term budget? Oh silly me. They don’t have one.
Hello? what part of net zero didn’t you get?
“five innovative methods of large-scale greenhouse gas removal”.
All activities of which, involve fossil fuelled mechanical diggers & cars, – same as the other BS wind farm devs, so driving around the UK, fooling with bits of rural Wales (already an unemployment black spot, because hill farming following Brexit is bankrupt), while flowing concrete and imported wind farm bits into places of outstanding natural beauty.
I checked out Pwllpeiran.
It’s a total BS project not even new, going back to 1930.
It’s based in an area who’s main previous activities were extraction of lead, silver and other metals 100 years ago becoming non viable, because cheaper to mine elsewhere, same as imported coal.
Wales struggles to maintain financial viability, especially since the steel, coal and iron industry fiascos, so the “yet another subsidy” from Oxford based “ivory tower” numpties is going to create 1000s of “green jobs” huh!
wonderful!
the useful energy released by burning fossil fuels/any hydrocarbons will be less than the energy required to reduce CO2 to captured carbon